The 3D Printed Elephant in the Room: an Open Letter to the Maker Community
On June 19, 2020, Dorothy Jones-Davis, Executive Director of Nation of Makers, wrote an open letter to the maker community addressing inequity in the field. It was co-signed in solidarity by Sherry Lassiter of Fab Foundation, Edun Sela of Tikkun Olam Makers, Molly Wenig Rubenstein of Open Source Medical Supplies, Emily McCann of Citizen Schools, and Dale Dougherty of Make: Community. Together, these organizations and leaders are committed to transforming the community into an inclusive and equitable space.
The 3D Printed Elephant in the Room
June 19th marks Juneteenth, the day that symbolically represents the end of slavery in the United States, and a day in which we celebrate the culture and achievements of African-Americans. May and June also historically mark a busy time in the U.S. Maker community. Starting in May with the former Bay Area Maker Faire (now Virtually Maker Faire) and the National Week of Making, the Nation of Makers Annual Leadership Convening (NOMCON) and the Capitol Hill Maker Faire, this time of year is typically one where our community, in all of its beauty, convenes and celebrates our breadth and diversity. Yet, it is also a constant reminder of the important and necessary work that still needs to be done.
As an African-American woman, and Executive Director of a national nonprofit that serves maker organizations, I am keenly aware of a fact that likely doesn’t surprise many - the mainstream maker movement and our Nation of Makers doesn’t have a whole lot of people of color represented in it. Simply put, as I attend maker events, visit makerspaces and organizations, and read about the mainstream maker movement, what is strikingly absent are the voices of people that look like me and share my identity. While this is my observation; the available data supports this perspective.
Figure 1: Question 10 - Nation of Makers’ Annual Survey of Makerspaces 2019 - Your Ethnicity
The Nation of Makers’ Annual Survey of Makerspaces is a yearly snapshot of the workings and characteristics of makerspaces - their members, their leaders and their economics. In our 2019 Annual Survey of Makerspaces, we found that makerspaces, depending on type, had anywhere from 1.54%-4.95% African-American makerspace members, even fewer Hispanic or Latinx makerspace members (from 0.99%-3.09%), nearly absent numbers of indigenous/native makers (0.43%), and low numbers of Asian makerspace members (from 2.74%-3.96%) (Figure 1). In our survey data, overwhelmingly, the members of makerspaces were Caucasian (80%-81.27%).
It’s what I call the 3D printed elephant in the room: the mainstream maker movement is not currently representative of makers of color, including Black, Latinx, and Indigenous makers, nor are there current investments to increase racial and ethnic diversity within the movement.
But why is this the case?
An assumption might be that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) don’t make or are simply disinterested in making. From the past and present traditions of Native American tribes, replete with cultures of making including beadwork, loomwork, weaving and more, to the traditions of Latinx makers, steeped in diverse making from textiles, food making and architecture, to cultures of making within the Black community ranging from quiltmaking, engineering, music, and dance —just to name a few from each culture— it is clear this is a false assumption. There is a deep and rich culture of making in communities of color; the mainstream maker movement just typically doesn’t acknowledge it, invite it, accept it, or celebrate it.
As the inequities and injustices that have been pervasive in our world for too many decades have persisted, and BIPOC bodies and lives continue to be disenfranchised, abused, neglected, and killed, it is imperative that the maker movement take this moment to realize our role in the perpetuation of a system that does not value the contributions of BIPOC in our society. I urge our community to consider how our individual and collective actions as a maker community can empower, support, and value makers of color and communities of color rather than suppress their viewpoints, contributions and work. How can we create diverse and inclusive spaces that are co-designed, co-led, co-organized, co-run by makers of color as much as white makers, that uplift the work and passions of makers of color, and that address the community needs and concerns of people of color as much as white community members? How can we celebrate the meaningful work of makers of color and their contributions to our communities and society?
We acknowledge that the solutions to this systemic problem will take time, but we must start somewhere and we must start now. At Nation of Makers, we started with the release of our Core Principles - a simple statement created by our Culture and Inclusion Working Group (CIWG) that affirms our community’s commitment to equity and inclusion, invites further dialogue, and encourages action by maker organizations to fulfill these beliefs. As a companion, our CIWG has compiled a crowdsourced list of culture and inclusion resources, and begun work on a series of action cards that will provide maker organizations with a menu of tangible actions to take as they co-create new maker communities grounded in social justice and equity.
However, re-envisioning an equitable world grounded in social justice and equity that brings in the diversity and fullness of makers within our community is not a one-person task or a simple checklist of actions. It will require all of us, all of the organizations and individuals that make up our Nation of Makers, to embark on this journey of re-creation of our maker movement. To this end, Nation of Makers is grateful to partner in this important work with leading organizations across the maker community, including the Fab Foundation, Tikkun Olam Makers, Open Source Medical Supplies, and Make: Community. We are joining together to unite the maker community in this long overdue critical internal reflection and work.
Together, we pledge to:
Facilitate a respectful and ongoing open dialogue across the breadth of the maker community, including those who do not currently consider themselves "makers", to collectively begin the process of articulating and addressing the barriers and boundaries that inhibit equity and inclusion within the community.
Identify concrete, intentional actions that we as a maker community can individually and collectively take to further inclusion and equity in our organizations and spaces, including but not limited to:
Listening to, supporting, and directly addressing the voices, needs and challenges of makers of color and communities of color
Investing in makerspaces that are located in and support BIPOC communities
Implicit and explicit bias training for staff and members
Anti-racist training for staff and members
Inclusive hiring policies and practices
Inclusive Board of Director formation
We acknowledge and recognize that this work will be a continual iterative process of listening, dialogue and action. We will certainly make mistakes along the way, but as makers do, we will continue to learn from our mistakes and improve. We invite everyone in our communities (and those who have specifically chosen not to be, because of past failures on our part) to join us in this process of reinvention of the maker movement, starting with our all-community facilitated Conversation about Race and Inclusion in the Maker Movement: Dialogue and Actions for Progress at 7pm ET/4pm PT on Thursday, July 2, 2020. We hope you will join us. We welcome all perspectives; please consider extending this invitation to another friend or colleague that could contribute to this conversation and share their perspective.
In Solidarity,
Dorothy Jones-Davis, Executive Director, Nation of Makers
Sherry Lassiter, President & CEO, Fab Foundation
Edun Sela, CEO, Tikkun Olam Makers
Molly Wenig Rubenstein, Co-Executive Director, Open Source Medical Supplies
Emily McCann, CEO, Citizen Schools
Dale Dougherty, Founder & President, Make: Community